Re: switch from context to msgctxt?

[F Wolff <friedel translate org za>]

Op Saterdag 2008-01-12 skryf Andre Klapper:
> hi leonardo,
> 
> had a talk with vuntz about migrating all strings with context to use
> msgctxt instead and to set this up as a gnome goal at
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals . we would just need to add an explicit
> how-to to get it filed in the wiki, and after that probably bring it up
> at gnome-i18n@ and d-d-l  
> since you may have much more clue about all this than me, i wonder if
> you have time to set this up, or at least have a link handy that
> explains and provides an example how to properly use msgctxt. also, do
> you know by any chance which translation tools support msgctxt (like
> kbabel or gtranslator)?
> 
> thanks in advance!,
> andre

I think many people have been in favour of this switch, and I'm one of
them. One of the main reasons is that automated QA with something like
pofilter[1] doesn't work that well with the current in-message context
markers.

I'm wondering if there is a plan for the migration. I would really like
us to have a way of migrating the current PO files without having to
review thousands of fuzzies. I'm already overwelmed by the untranslated
things - I don't want to loose the already existing things!

If there isn't already a plan in place, I think it will be reasonably
easy to write a tool by using the libraries in the Translate Toolkit to
write something that can go through the many PO files to simply write
them out in the new format with msgctxt markers. The issue is of course
that this will only help if the affected packages updated their code.
I'm not that clued up about the current way of providing context, but my
understanding is that most of it is handled by means of GConf, so as
soon as the GConf change goes in, this becomes a reality for all
packages. Can anybody confirm this?

I am willing to write such a tool, if we have agreement that this is the
way to go and if people will help test it. What would be the timeline
for something like this? I assume it will only happen after the upcoming
release?

Keep well
Friedel

[1] http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/toolkit/pofilter